Shutterstock

Imagine buying a ceiling fan and deciding to hire someone to install it. How much would you be willing to pay?

In this story, one homeowner is in this situation, and he starts by having someone from a company come out to provide a quote for the job. When he hears how much it’s going to cost, he refuses to move forward.

But that’s far from the end of the story.

Keep reading to find out how he manages to get the fans installed and what happens when the company reaches out to him again.

They Priced Themselves Out of a Job

I had two ceiling fans that I wanted installed upstairs.

I’ve lived at my new place for a year and noticed the guest room and office can get a little warm, so I looked around for a light/ceiling fan combo and found two I liked.

Next step was finding a certified Electrician to install them.

I’ve done fan installations before where I lived, but its a pain. Standing up on that ladder, neck in an uncomfortable position, not enough light, fiddling with those wires while trying to hold the unit in place.

It wasn’t too hard to find a company to install the fans.

I get on Google and find a company.

They say next day they can have someone out, provide an estimate and install if I decide to proceed.

Person arrives on time, we go over what I want. Take a look at the panel to be sure there isn’t any strange wiring issues.

I inquire about the price, asking if it will be around $200 and he laughs a bit and says it will be more like +$700.

That price was a dealbreaker.

I say thats too much, I’m not going to pay that much for just installation, I’ve already bought the fans, maybe if that was the total cost. I apologize for wasting their time and wish them a good day, again, apologizing for wasting their time.

A few minutes go by and there is a knock at my door. I immediately know whats about to happen. Its the Electrician and he just wanted to inform me that they do side work all the time.

I ask how much do they charge and they said $200 for both ceiling fans.

They came back the next day, probably on their day off, and installed both in less than 2 hours, I paid them in cash. Fans installed, I saved +$500.

But OP later heard back from the company.

The company followed up with a text inquiring if I wanted to give them a review. It was an automatic text, sent out through some system that wasn’t smart enough to determine that I had turned their business down and refused. It just wanted me to give them a review and provided a link to their Google site.

I texted back that I had refused service, so there wouldn’t be a Review to post, but if they insisted, I could post that they wanted to charge me an outrageous fee and I refused their business.

They texted back to defend their pricing.

OP held his ground.

I just texted them stating I was confident I could find a qualified Electrician that was licensed, bonded and insured to do the work for much less. (I know because they had just installed the two fans – the very same Electrician/employee that they had initially sent out).

They’ll never know that they missed out on any further Electrical jobs because of their greed in pricing a simple job at an Emergency rate.

I get everyone needs to wet their beek, but trying to charge that much for just facilitating the professional provided was just greedy and they deserve the way it worked out.

It sure felt like petty revenge.

I’m glad OP didn’t rat out the electrician for doing work on the site and poaching clients. The company really is overcharging by a huge margin.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person makes a good point.

Another person has a theory.

This person did the same thing.

But this person wouldn’t have hired the electrician.

Unless those were really expensive ceiling fans, it seems like the company was probably charging more for installation than the cost of the fans. It would be really hard to justify spending that much.